JAVS Summer 2018

One sphere the sonata inhabits is the psychologically fraught, “orphic” one. Henze wrote:

After the cadenza section the two protagonists nd what seems to be a moment of peace, although that I am not sure that I can say that they are reconciled (m. 211, ex. 7). Whilst the viola sings away to itself, the piano plays what might be described a sort of chorale in four parts in a strangely haunting symmetrical counterpoint (another Berg-ian allusion). is nds its way to the only notated silent whole measure in the whole work. en follows a sequence of three “lyrical stutterings” (mm. 236–243) as the piece collapses towards its coda. Each of these might be read, or played, as attempts to reanimate the hopeful lyricism of the opening, as both players try and rediscover that spirit. eir attempts fail. e coda (mm. 244–end) of the sonata begins with a Schoenberg-like ‘motto’ outburst from the viola alone, marked Allegro marziale, with measures alternating between three and ve quarter-notes in length (ex. 8). e marziale gives more of a clue as to the attack which Henze imagined for these opening notes (C–F–F sharp–B) than anything else, and the listener certainly will not hear an allegro as the shortest notes in this rising signal are half-notes. e viola resolves onto a dramatically re-articulated messa di voce A, while the piano returns to the threatening material which it had introduced near the opening of the piece with freezing ferocity, setting up a nal, unmeasured series of desperate statements which are utterly bereft of hope. Ironically, here we nd the only gestures that the two instruments make together in the whole piece, the three curlew-like wailings, the last quiet statements of the work. And then the peace is obliterated by nal ‘pile-driving’ piano chords, leaving viola in awful isolation on a top D, as the piano diminuendos, using a “pedal glissando,” which Henze marks (somewhat obscurely) with a dashed line curling upwards.

It is the experience of despair, madness and self destruction on which the new tonal relationships are based, but on which now the full light of joy and happiness can now fall. 11 In some ways the extended cadenza-like section that follows (m. 203) is where the su ering is lessened, where reason returns, albeit temporarily. is is entirely unmeasured, marked “con impeto, e velocità.” is is the closest that the Viola Sonata comes to the virtuosic instrumental theatre of the Second Violin Concerto (1972). A tragedy of today’s hegemony computer written scores is that composers are less likely to write such beautiful semi-space-time notated sections like this, where the timing and drama is held in creatively uneasy balance between the graphic layout of material on the stave and the ambiguity of the shards of rhythmic notation which nd their way into the music. Henze’s use of this technique can best be described as a dramatic/ emotional museum. All the gestures used, refer backwards and forwards to similar or related tropes in the piece; each of them must be played with character, which either chooses, or does not choose, to allude to the material or context from where they have been culled. In recent years, I have come to think of this as functioning most like one of the Cornelis Gijsbrechts’s (1630–1670) trompe l’oeil bulletin boards, where apparently unrelated material is tacked up, devoid of hierarchy and either fraught with, or shorn of its meaning.

Example 8. Hans Werner Henze, Viola Sonata, mm. 244–248. e opening four notes of the coda.

Henze SONATA per viola e pianoforte. Copyright © 1980 Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz, Germany. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission of European American Music Distributors Company, sole U.S. and Canadian agent for Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz, Germany.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 34, 2018 Online Issue

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